The widow of the former prime minister Harold Wilson has died aged 102 at St Thomas’ Hospital, in London, after a stroke.

Lady Wilson of Rievaulx, a poet, was the oldest surviving prime ministerial spouse — the only centenarian among a small band that includes the Countess of Avon (Clarissa Eden), 97.

While Harold Wilson divided opinion, in the Labour Party as much as the country at large, his wife, Mary, inspired widespread affection and respect. Satirised in Private Eye’s Mrs Wilson’s Diary as suburban, subsequent accounts of her time in Downing Street reveal an independent woman.

She opposed Britain’s entry to the European Community in 1975 even as her husband supported the campaign to join and supported unilateral nuclear disarmament, which he opposed.